1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of agricultural management and marketing. More particularly, though not exclusively, this invention is drawn to a method and system of marketing for agricultural producers and for providing marketing services to agricultural producers and those interested in the management of agricultural producers.
2. Problems in the Art
Despite the size and importance of the agriculture economy, the farmer has not been able to sell his/her products for a profit. This inability for farmers to sell their products for profit has had numerous effects on the agriculture industry and the economy.
The effects have included that farms are growing in size. Another effect is that vertical integration has occurred, consolidating agricultural production with downstream processes such as meatpacking. In remaining farm families, one or more members of the family often work outside the farm in order to produce steady income. Additional pressures have fallen on the producers as government's role in agriculture declines, reducing or eliminating subsidies, price controls, and other measures that sometimes benefit agricultural producers. Government involvement and available farm programs has also added to the complexity of production and financial decisions.
Another problem for producers involves the availability of tools such as crop insurance or financing. Crop insurance can provide some protection against loss of crops, so in some respects can be tied to revenue, but there are many limitations on crop insurance, as a successful season is no longer a mere function of the weather. Furthermore, crop insurance such as crop revenue coverage (CRC) provides only revenue protection on a crop-by-crop basis.
The availability of financing and financing terms are other problems that plague the agricultural producer. Banks, farmer cooperatives, and other lenders are often unwilling to loan money to farmers or producers or otherwise extend credit. When lending institutions do extend credit, the financing terms themselves reflect the uncertainty of agricultural operations' propensity for success.
These and many other problems face the producer. The complexity of the agricultural production industry continues to increase, with many uncertainties that result in producers not being able to operate profitably. This uncertainty creates additional problems, as it increases other costs of business, such as financing rates (assuming financing can be even be found), and insurance rates.
Many attempts have been made to solve these and related problems. Due to the number of variables involved, the complexity of the interplay between production and finance, agricultural producers have not been able to solve these problems. Furthermore, banks and other lenders or creditors have not been able to solve these problems either in order to ensure that the agricultural producers debt obligations are made. Thus numerous problems face agricultural producers.
Although particular agricultural producers, financial planners, financial institutions and others have developed their own rules of thumb and calculations to improve the likelihood of success, there have been problems with these implementations. In particular, such prior art solutions are not comprehensive in nature and cannot be applied consistently to a number of operations in order to obtain consistent results.
In fact, producers have used a number of ad hoc methods of market prediction with unpredictable and often poor results. Producers have a tendency to seek out the high market price and to sell at this price. This “high price” is not predictable, however, and there is little likelihood of a producer being able to predict it. This prediction is normally made by a producer on hearsay information, incomplete market data, and other guesses or estimates. A producer's guess as to what the high price is and when it occurs is troublesome, as the producer is taking a very large gamble on what that price will be and when it will occur. Lenders and creditors are also very uncomfortable with this situation as it is not in their best interest to have the producer gamble away his or her ability to meet debt obligations. At the same time, however, lenders such as financial institutions are not in a position to predict markets either and have no greater expertise than a particular agricultural producer.
It is therefore a primary objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide an apparatus, method, and system which improve upon the state of the art.
It is another objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide for a method of creating marketing plans for agricultural producers.
It is another objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a method of providing mass customization of marketing plans for agricultural producers.
It is another objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide for optimized selection of a crop insurance revenue plan.
It is another objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a method of insuring a particular revenue level for agricultural producers.
It is another objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a method of insuring a particular revenue level for an agricultural operation so that a lender may be more secure in financing the agricultural operation.
It is another objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a method of quantifying financial risks associated with an agricultural enterprise.
It is another objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a method of quantifying price risks associated with agricultural crops produced by an agricultural enterprise.
It is another objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide for a method of agricultural production management that permits price add on strategies to be used.
It is another objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a system and method of agricultural management that permits strategies to be modified as market information changes.
It is another primary objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide for agricultural production analysis on an enterprise wide scale.
It is another primary objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a system and method of agricultural marketing and management that take into account a producer's familiarity with future's trading.
It is another primary objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a system and method of agricultural marketing and management that provide assurance of a particular level of revenue.
It is another primary objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a system and method of agricultural marketing and management to provide opportunities to provide revenue in excess of a particular assured level of revenue.
It is another primary objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a system and method of agricultural marketing and management that take into account human factors and personal risk preferences in designing a strategic agricultural marketing plan.
It is another primary objective, feature, or advantage of the present invention to provide a system and method of agricultural marketing and management that captures income rather than protecting price.
These and other objectives, features, or advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the specification and claims.